Sasusaku bashing.
That cover with sasuke and sakura really bothered me. I know the producers of the movie authorized it but I really am anti sasusaku. why? They are pathetic together. I would hate to be in a relationship like theirs. The man is emotionally and mentally abusive to the girl, almost killed her and the girl is so pathetic that she is literally begging for him to be with her. Omg, what a pair. Who actually likes this pair and why? I said years before that if they ended up together kishi would have to do a complete 180 on how sasuke's character acts towards her and that possibly there would be a flashback of how he actually liked her, etc. So basically you have to reverse all the actions sasuke has taken in 600+ chapters to make them a likable pair.
This whole manga, like many manga, has really avoided the idea of romance entirely. It just doesn't cover adult topics like that, and never really has.
Honestly, name me one romantic relationship in the entire history of the manga where we see some love and romance? I can name one, maybe two: Minato+Kushina and MAYBE Asuma and Kurenai. In the later one, they always denied having a relationship until after Asuma died (and we only see like one scene of her grieving the death, and we never see her again). We do see some other couples who are married, but we never see any tenderness or romance in any of those cases. We see kids, so we have to assume they were intimate at some point in the past.
The "relationship" between Sasuke and Sakura is as forced and pathetic as the "relationship" between Naruto and Hinata. Both of them are unreciprocated crushes which are only mentioned when necessary for the plot and completely ignored otherwise.
Sasuke has been a jerk for 600 chapters of the manga and never once demonstrated any kind of caring for Sakura EXCEPT for that one scene where he leaves the village and she tries to stop him. Naruto and Hinata at least had that one scene where they held hands when fighting the Juubi.
Now that I think about it, Naruto and Sakura have hugged each other more than any other pair. Not that this means anything, of course. But naruto has also referred to Sakura as his "girlfriend" more than any other pairing either. Not great.
Kishi either doesn't know how to write romance, or he is intentionally targetting the manga at a younger audience and doesn't want to get involved with adult themes. In either case, the "relationships" in the manga are all pathetic, and Sasuke+Sakura is probably the worst because, in addition to being completely ignored, Sasuke has actively been written in a way that makes him emotionally incompatible with Sakura.
They will end up together, but it will be forced and all the reconciliation and courting will happen during a timeskip.
